Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Signs, Signs


And you thought this was going to be about the tornado. . .

Nope, they've done it again. There is a new billboard campaign. From the news story:


"[Pastor] Benke said it's important people understand what's contained in
Christian scripture.
'And then, quite frankly, the church gets that message
wrong, as well,' he said. 'But the Bible teaches there is no sin that isn't
forgivable in Jesus.'
Benke hopes his church's thought-provoking billboards
mark the beginning, not the end, of a conversation about forgiveness."

The billboards offer a website, http://www.whatsforgivable.com/, and the billboard connects to a sermon series starting soon.

At least this time around, the message is scriptural. In Christ, all sins have been paid for.

Here comes the question: will Jefferson Hills get the message right? Will they talk about all having sinned and fallen short of the glory of God? Will they talk about how we are all beggars before God whose only prayer can be, "Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner"? Will they address confession and repentence? Will they address the unforgivable sin and adequately discuss it?

I suspect that as good as this sermon series sounds, the point will be lost in the midst of people pondering the billboards and wondering in human terms what is forgivable, and miss the point that we are not the king who forgives the large debt, but we are the slave who finds it difficult to forgive the small debt.

Monday, August 17, 2009

More from the File of Things That Make You Go "Hmm"

What does it say when a parent touring one's school (Lutheran school, mind you) if the school holds to its own teaching or has been sucked in to the ways of the world? This actually occured today. The parent wasn't being mean; this person really wanted to know. The parent then proceeded to offer this explanation for the question. This parent has been looking at Christian schools in which to enroll a child, and one school indicated that they did not celebrate Christmas. This school had been directed by its board to celebrate "winter holidays" aka "ChanuRamaKwanzsMas" so as not to offend the sensitivities of its non-Christian students. Excuse me? I can understand a public school (our motto: thou shalt not offend any but those who need offense--Christians, those of European heritage, and those who support a male-dominated culture) not celebrating Christmas, or at least that holiday of Santa Claus, brown paper packages tied up with string, and the Grinch; but a Christian school?! This seems rather ridiculous. The parent even asked the school what they do for Easter. What next? They won't celebrate Mother's Day so as not to offend those without mothers or those with a mother and a stepmother and a surrogate mother and the girlfriend of the mother because the poor teacher doesn't have time enough in the day for four Mother's Day handprints in clay, let alone one because the teacher has to cover hygiene and safe sex and self-esteem and integrating counting in the early English language (een, tween, treen) to help the children become "the most limited of all specialists, the 'well-rounded' [person]"?
Maybe I've crossed the line over into the absurd. Maybe I'm not the one who has crossed the line. I just can't get beyond this question: if you don't stand for what you believe in, why bother believing at all?

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

From the File of Things That Make You Go, "Hmm"

Perusing a blog I frequent frequently (Is that redundant?), some of the comments there made me wonder. Why is it that in a world, land, society, fill-in-the-blank where "everyone is entitled to their own opinion" and were nobody is supposed to step on the rights of others, those who assert their opinion contrary to popular opinion are squelched? I guess that's a convoluted way to ask.
What about Sarah Palin? Why is she branded whatever she is because of who she is? Why can anybody get away with it with her and not with, say Sotomayor? To pick on one woman is acceptable, to do the same to another is racist. Same goes for the president. Why is it forbidden to ask the hard questions and not be labeled as racist, narrow-minded, or just "totally out of touch with reality"? Policy is considered separately from the person. If Bush had the policies of Clinton, I would never had voted for him, truly. Have we really come so far that we have forgotten how to think and debate civilly? We resort to ad hominim attacks and that wins the debate in our book?
It especially falls hard on Christians, especially those who still hold to theology, doctrine, and vocation. Now we try to rule the world with religion. We are closed-minded to new ways of doing things. If I recall my history correctly, the Christians were opposed to slavery. The Christians helped make Europe a kinder, gentler society in the Middle Ages.
I hear it now: "But that history was written slanted," or "What about the Christians who owned slaves?" or "What about the Crusades, huh?" There is no quick rebuttal if one does not believe in sin. Christians aren't perfect ("Boy, haven't I heard that one before?"), but to say that all Christians are a certain way because of the Crusades is as prejudiced as saying all green people are the same because of the actions of the Wicked Witch of the West. (I'm sure there are green people out there who are truly decent people and do not cackle menacingly and threaten little dogs and girls wearing ruby slippers.)
This is the long way of saying this: I'm not all those labels one slaps on Christian conservatives. Sure, I'll think for myself and make up my own mind. I'll speak up when I need to, and I will work to show others their errors. Maybe that's what's forbidden--"have your own opinion, but I don't want to hear it because you'll just tell me I'm wrong." Or maybe it's okay to tell me I'm wrong to tell you you're wrong because that's just wrong. Welcome to post-modernism, I guess.